Your bargaining team is pushing for a clear process to follow if you or a co-worker are mistreated or harassed at work, so we can protect ourselves and each other. While we had an in-depth conversation about this issue, the employer is making it difficult to move forward as they’ll only accept our improvements to the language if we accept two of their proposals.
One of the employer’s proposals would give them the right to send you to a doctor of their choice in the case that they want to assess your fitness for the job. In this situation, a note from your own doctor, which the employer already has the right to request, should be sufficient. We made this clear to them at the table.
The other item they tabled includes language stating no employee should be impaired at work, which our members already know. This item is not only unnecessary as impairment on the job is not a problem, but it also undermines our professionalism and our genuine attempts to make our workplace a safer and more respectful place.
Your right to work in a safe workspace with real protections against discrimination and harassment should not be conditional on unnecessary articles. We hope moving forward the employer doesn’t continue to try and distract from the issues that matter most to you.
However, one positive note was that we reached agreement on giving probationary employees access to the grievance procedure (except arbitration).
Your support for your bargaining team is crucial right now. You are the experts on your work, and together we can show the employer we know what we need to continue delivering quality support to seniors in the Chinatown community.
Bargaining is scheduled to continue May 9 and 10. If you have any questions or ideas before then, please contact us – your voice matters, and we want to hear from you.
Edmonton Chinatown Care Centre Bargaining Team Members:
Concesa Brody 780-680-1284 (cell) 357galbraithcl@gmail.com
Nancy Santos 780-463-5305 magnas13@yahoo.com
Barni Mahamoud 780-885-4866 (cell) gobeye@yahoo.com
ALTERNATES:
Yanan (Anna) Zheng 780-988-3968 or yananzheng512@gmail.com
Yinghua Li 780-709-5610 or yinghuali61@hotmail.com
AUPE Resource Staff:
Merryn Edwards Negotiator
m.edwards@aupe.org
Dave Malka Organizing
780-231-1800 or d.malka@aupe.org
Celia Shea Communications
780-720-8122 or c.shea@aupe.org